Why public universities may collapse, by UNIPORT VC

The outgoing Vice-Chancellor of the University of Port Harcourt (UNIPORT), Prof. Joseph Ajienka, has stated that inadequate funding may kill public universities.

Ajienka also said the murder of four students of the institution at Omuokiri-Aluu in Ikwerre Local Government Area of Rivers State, brought the university so much anguish and negative publicity.

The vice-chancellor spoke yesterday during a news conference for the convocation and carnival for UNIPORT at 40, which took place at the Convocation Arena of the university.

He said: “I envisage a situation in which public universities are likely to collapse on account of inadequate funding. It is a curious situation to note that while many parents are willing to pay outrageous school fees for their children in universities outside the country, they are the first to kick against the introduction of some form of charges at the tertiary level of education in the country.

“It is inexplicable that we are prepared to pay huge sums to sustain quality education in other countries, while treating our own university system with utter contempt. Nothing can explain this untenable situation, and this is putting it rather mildly.

“This whole scenario no longer makes sense, as the university system in this country continues to strain under the weight of underfunding from statutory sources and indifference from society. The truth is that statutory federal allocations alone can no longer be relied upon to run the universities, as little or nothing is left to embark on meaningful research and infrastructural development, after payment of salaries.

“The plain truth is that we can no longer shy away from giving serious consideration to the issue of introducing some form of school fees or charges in the Nigerian university system, if we hope to dig it out of the deep morass into which years of unrealistic tuition-free education has placed it. Parents can and should pay a little more to sustain the Nigerian university system, if they still hope to see public universities in the next ten years. The situation is that critical and it requires immediate remedial measures.”

Ajienka also stated that unless something drastic was done on university funding and quickly too, the hope of attaining the indices of true national development would continue to be a mirage, while suggesting that an education bank should be created to grant loans to indigent students.

He revealed that UNIPORT was facing severe difficulties in having unfettered access to the land acquired by the Federal Government for the establishment of the university in 1975.

The vice-chancellor expressed displeasure that the university was compelled to enter into hard bargaining processes with relevant host communities, for every metre of land earmarked for developmental purposes and being compelled to correspondingly pay for economic trees and cash crops on such lands, before taking possession, while not being successful in some instances, with the people of the host communities becoming increasingly non-cooperative.

Ajienka stressed that the type of institutional relationship with the host communities on land matters was not conducive to the accelerated development of UNIPORT in the short, medium and long terms, while pleading with the government to come to the aid of the university.

He also disclosed that in the undergraduate category of UNIPORT’s 30th convocation holding on Friday and Saturday, covering 2011/2012, 2012/2013 and 2013/2014 academic sessions, 41 graduands earned First Class (Honours) Degree, while the 40th anniversary of the university’s establishment had also commenced.

The incoming 8th vice-chancellor of UNIPORT, Prof. Ndowa Ekoate Sunday Lale, 59, an indigene of Ebubu in Eleme Local Government Area of Rivers State, was also presented at the carnival. Lale, who would hold office for a single tenure of five years, would assume office on July 12 this year.

Ajienka, who hails from Okrika in Rivers state, while speaking on the convocation, noted that a total of 18,363 students would receive first degrees, postgraduate diplomas, master’s and doctoral degrees from 55 departments in 16 faculties. Undergraduate convocation would hold on Friday (June 12), while postgraduate diplomas and higher degrees would be conferred on deserving persons the next day (June 13), the grand finale of the convocation.

Former President Goodluck Jonathan, a alumnus of UNIPORT, who took all his three degrees from the institution, would also be honoured as a distinguished fellow of the university, during the convocation, in honour of his “exemplary” leadership of Nigeria and contributions to his alma mater, being the first to be so honoured, while the third Chancellor of UNIPORT, since its establishment in 1975, HRH Mohammad Iliyasu Bashir, the Emir of Gwandu, would also be installed during the convocation.

The outgoing vice-chancellor also disclosed that over N20 billion worth of projects were attracted to UNIPORT in the last five years.

While speaking on the Aluu mob action, Ajienka said: “The gruesome murder of four students of UNIPORT at Omuokiri-Aluu on October 5, 2012 brought to the fore the state of insecurity facing the entire country at the moment. The scar left by that unfortunate incident is a constant reminder of how a civilised society can very easily slide into chaos, in the absence of an inbuilt mechanism for regulating its conduct.

“It is on record that authorities of the university and security agencies did an admirable job in containing the situation that brought us so much anguish and negative publicity. Since the matter is now pending before a court of competent jurisdiction, I can only add that a lot of work has gone into making the university’s neighbourhood safe for our staff and students, since the ugly incident happened.

“Since the unfortunate Aluu incident, we have initiated several confidence-building measures, aimed at bringing about peaceful co-existence between the university and its immediate host communities.

“It is our prayer and hope that such horrendous incidents would not befall either this (UNIPORT) or any other university in the country. We have full confidence in the capacity of the judiciary to dispense justice on the distasteful Aluu-4 incident.”

The vice-chancellor also expressed profound gratitude to the Rivers Government, security agencies, the people of the host communities and others who stood by the university and its officials in their moment of grief.